The next best thing to sitting next to my husband at Mass is our drive home. We typically chat about the usual stuff: our breakfast plans, our Sunday to-do list, and, of course, how cute our grandbaby Gemma Rose is. Then we'll have a conversation about Mass—more often than not we talk about the homily, then maybe we'll discuss the music, and so on. It's a sweet exchange.

But it wasn't always like this. For many years my car ride to and from church was a lonely ride. It was just me and...

~ The cries of children, just 5 and 6 years old, burned alive in the arms of their mothers at Miako, Japan; as reported by an English sea captain (Calendar of State Papers: Colonial East Indies, 1617-1621, p. 357).